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excited listener asked Russell if it would be convenient for him to fix the date of that" good time."
Henry Russell thus relates the the origin of " A Life on the Ocean Wave:" " One bright spring morning as Epps Sargent strolled on the Battery, New York, watching the ships in the harbour, the scene before him gave him an idea which he proceeded to develop. His walk and song were completed together, and Sargent went to the office of our mutual friend, George P. Morris, and wrote out the words.
'"This is not a song at all,' said Morris after reading it. ' It will not do for music.'
" A few days after I met Sargent and asked him for the song. He told me very dolefully what Morris had said, but I insisted on seeing the manuscript. We then went into a Broad-way music store kept by a good friend, and were invited into a back room where there was a capital piano. I hummed an air or two, ran my fingers over the keys, then stopped feeling baffled; suddenly an idea struck me, I began to hum a melody that seemed floating through my brain, and presently touching the keys with a confident exclamation, that bright little air rang out which is now so well known as 'A Life on the Ocean Wave.'" Speaking on
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